Tim Cook says you’ll soon be able to turn off the system that slows iPhones as the battery gets older

As we learned back at the end of December, Apple has been limiting the maximum performance of iPhones as the batteries within get older. The goal, they’ve stated, is to prevent random device shutdowns as time goes on and the battery’s output starts to wane.

But that’s something they ought to have explained better from Day 1 of the software change; most users would never expect that swapping a battery could impact a phone’s speed. It’s a misstep that has since resulted in apologies, lawsuits, and the rollout of a new battery replacement program.

And soon, it seems, you’ll be able to turn off the battery/performance balancing system all together. Tim Cook mentions the coming change in an interview with ABC News’ Rebecca Jarvis:

“We will tell somebody we’re slightly reducing, or we’re reducing your performance by some amount in order to not have an unexpected restart. If you don’t want it? You can turn it off. Now, we don’t recommend it, because we think people’s iPhones are really important to them, and you never can tell when something is so urgent…”

You can see the relevant bit for yourself at just after the 4:00 mark:

Apple had previously promised an update that would provide better insight about the life of your battery and its impact on your device, but this is the first time I’ve heard them mention allowing the user to turn off battery/performance management overall.

Cook mentions that these changes, as with most things Apple rolls out, will ship to developers first (sometime next month) before arriving for all. We’ve reached out to Apple for more details.